


The Hearts of Wolves

by darthneko



Series: What Matters Most [9]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Azeroth Politics, Character Death Fix, Cute Kids, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Headcanon, Illustrated, Implied Mpreg, Kid Fic, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Varian Wrynn Lives, World of Warcraft: Legion Spoilers, Wrynns don't do feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-11 02:47:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: Varian Wrynn's survival of the Broken Shore was only the beginning - recovery is long and full of compromises, both in body and in the hearts of those he nearly left behind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quieter fic - slow, lots of politics, lots of Wrynns talking in tangents at each other because they are, let's face it, terrible at just TALKING. And I have a lot of Wrynn feels. Part of the larger series, Anduin+mates+kids, and references difficulties Anduin and Varian were having over Anduin's choice of Consort (which will be detailed in fics that haven't been written/posted yet). Three chapters, and I'll post them here just as soon as they come out of beta, no waiting forever for this one, promise!

The portal opened to the peak of the Temple, a rounded room of cream stone centered around the towering statue of the Isle's founder and filled with the sweet scent of the flowering trees that arched over head and the splash of water from the fountain. It was security, as Anduin understood it - while a different portal anchor might have been more convenient for travelers, this one opened to where the Masters of the Temple were most often gathered, many more monks coming and going at all hours, and would require a bitter fight down long flights of steps flanked on all sides by the monk training yards in order to reach the vulnerable villages nestled at the foot of the Temple. It let the Wandering Isle have contact to the outside world, while still maintaining their safety.

He had grown familiar with the Masters of the Broken Temple over successive visits, and returned the bow of the heavily armored master who met him just beyond the portal with a smile. "Master Ponshu."

"Emperor." Iron-body Ponshu might live up to his nickname, as large and strong as the mountain he stood on, but he was anything except stern and his smile was warm and ready, a welcome greeting. His eyes lit up when he took in what Anduin had brought with him, and Anduin could read the expression through the rest of his face well enough to know that beneath his helm the Pandaren's ears had flicked upwards in pleased surprise. "And who might these be?"

Anduin reached to his side but his daughter was quicker, stepping forward to drop a curtsey - one that she almost stumbled as she hadn't in years, when she caught herself in mid motion and turned it into a proper bow over her clasped fists instead. It made her flush, cheeks staining red, but her voice was clear and her Pandaren more flawless than Anduin's for all that the words came out in practiced rush. "Jade Serpent watch over you, Master."

Ponshu returned the bow deeply, obviously charmed. "My daughters," Anduin explained, touching Varia's hair lightly as she straightened. She was growing rapidly - sometimes overnight, he thought - and her head nearly came to his waist now, but standing in front of Ponshu, who could have stepped over her with little effort, she was nothing but a tiny cub once more. "Varia, my eldest, and Li Hua, my youngest." At his hip, supported securely by a sling that stretched across Anduin's chest and by Anduin's own arm, Li Hua blinked with wide blue eyes, her mouth full of the palm sized smooth jade ring that she held with both hands and which had become a constant feature since the cubs had begun to teethe. 

Second in command of the Temple or no, Ponshu had to make a visible effort not to coo at the cubs. "You are most welcome here," he rumbled, overtones of a purr in his deep voice. "You are to meet with the healers?"

"And the Grandmaster, if he's available," Anduin replied. "But the healers first - I don't dare disrupt their schedule."

Ponshu snorted softly, grinning. "The Emperor is wise indeed. I will tell the Grandmaster you've arrived; he is with a class right now, but will be able to join you after."

Anduin thanked him and took Varia's hand as they left. She didn't need the help but the stairs were quite long, multiple flights of broad, shallow steps, and Anduin's hold on her let him know, without words, when she began to lag and he adjusted his own pace accordingly. In truth, he could acknowledge to himself, he wasn't looking forward to the climb back _up_ the stairs, not when it would probably involve two tired cubs and neither of his girls were as small as they once were for carrying. 

He would have loved to have brought all of the children, but spiriting them all away for a day was stretching Stormwind's security - and Shaw's patience and the gossip that SI:7 tried to keep a handle on - more than was really wise. In the end, he had sat the three eldest down and explained the matter and the cubs, on their own, had drawn lots and divided themselves out neatly. Three visits, one with each of the elder cubs and accompanied by the younger siblings of their choice, and it had surprised absolutely no one that Varia had claimed Li Hua as hers. The Crown Princess of Stormwind was still entirely enamored of having a baby sister, her pouting that Li Hua was now too big for Varia herself to easily carry around notwithstanding.

Anduin privately admitted that he might have arranged it that way himself if his daughter hadn't already done it for him. Letters, both from the healers and their patient, had made plain his father's growing frustration with being bedridden and Anduin knew from experience exactly how miserable of a patient his father made. No matter what height of temper Varian had worked himself into, however, Anduin would willingly place money on a bet that no amount of snap and growl would survive a visit from his granddaughters - not when Varia had been a surefire way to derail his father's temper ever since Anduin had first put her as a small babe into his father's hands. 

He had hope that all of the cubs would be a welcome addition. He had coached the older ones into writing, parchments full of scrawled childish letters, misspellings, ink blots and sticky fingers, and distorted drawings of whatever had caught their fancy that day. Sending them had been a gesture, though Anduin couldn't have said whether it was of hope or pure stubbornness. He hadn't expected his father's almost off handed reply that he was glad the children were doing well in their lessons and that he looked forward to more letters from them. _That_ letter he had read multiple times himself, just for the unexpected burst of warmth it spread through his chest

Hope, maybe. Reconciliation, a peace treaty over battle lines between them that they had drawn in reflex and hadn't known how to defuse. _Stubborn,_ his mates would call it, and it was certainly one word for it, Wrynn pride and temper and stubborn immovability dug in and set against each other in the hardest clash they had ever had. It was different, he had found, to face off against his father as a man and not a child, the edges sharper and harder, the cuts deeper. 

They had barely found any common ground before tragedy struck, and it had been war and chaos ever since. Nearly a year, but it felt like ten or more. Anduin took a deeper breath as they reached the base of the Temple, squeezing Varia's hand and holding Li Hua a little closer, bending his head to breath in the softly sweet scent of the little girl's fur. Let it be right, he thought, almost a silent prayer. Surely the world and the Light owed him that much. The cubs deserved their grandfather, all of them, and he... he wanted his father back, with an ache that reached so deep it was in his bones. 

Varia tugged at his hand. "Grandda?" she asked, bright and excited, and Anduin gave her the best smile he could.

"Yes, sweetheart. Let's go see your grandfather."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS - this chapter makes reference to a number of spoilers still to come in this series, including Stormwind internal politics, assassination attempts, and Wrynn family strife (aka, what to do when your father doesn't approve of your choice of consort and you both have heads as hard as rocks). Also, part of the mining and inscription profession quest chains on the Broken Isles. I promise there will be more on all of this later.

The healers of the Temple had taken up permanent residence in the buildings at the base of the Temple, a cluster of craftsman domiciles that had been converted into a general hospice to treat the inevitable small injuries of initiate classes as well as the deeper wounds of monks returning from service on the Broken Shore. Nor was the Broken Temple particular about race; Anduin passed a Tauren in worn Kun-Lai leathers who had drawn his heavy mane back in a very Pandaren styled queue, and a Troll and Orc who were working side by side with a Night Elf, all in the plain cloth uniform of initiates and under the watchful eye of a Pandaren monk teacher who was directing them to unload several cartloads of supplies at the edge of the healing compound. 

The healers themselves knew him on sight, and he them. It was the graying and pale scarred Master Stormstrike who met them at the door of one of the nondescript buildings. The elderly Pandaren was still straight and firm in his carriage, a retired Shado-Pan priest who had spent most of his life on the great Serpent Spine wall that protected the Pandaren lands from the insectoid Klaxxi. It had left him short one eye, and gruffly blunt in temperament.

He raised a brow at the sight of the cubs and snorted. "On your head be it," he told Anduin, without any care for rank or formality. "He's been as prickly as a razorquill all day."

"I'm sure he has," Anduin sighed, but it was more relief than exasperation - that his father would have the strength to drive his healers to distraction had been something Anduin had prayed for too recently to not be grateful that it had come to pass. Varia was bouncing on her toes beside him, her small hands yanking at Anduin's wrist and sleeve. Anduin gave the healer a half hearted shrug as though to say it was entirely out of his hands, and then had to grab the back of Varia's dress when Stormstrike grunted and swept the door covering back with one arm, holding it aside for them. 

"You have visitors," the healer barked towards the inner room. The snarled back reply from inside lacked any of the volume or power Anduin was familiar with hearing, but the sentiment of the words was unmistakable. Taking a breath around the tightness in his chest, he let Varia go, his daughter darting forward with an excited squeal. In the scant steps it took Anduin to reach the door of the inner room she had already burst through it, scrambling to climb up onto the deep, thick cushioned, rounded bed that dominated the room. 

His father was struggling up against the cushions, surprise written large across his face. Varian Wrynn had always been a large man, a solidly massive presence that towered over those around him; his height was the only part of that he retained, the almost skeletal thinness of illness accentuating the length of his limbs until they seemed unnatural. It left his bones and joints too prominent, raw and angular. A soft woven shirt of plain white hung off his shoulders like empty clothes on the drying line. Only his hands were the same as they had ever been when he caught Varia as the girl threw herself onto him, knocking him back against the pillows with a muted grunt.

Anduin caught himself against the door frame, making himself draw in one breath after another. His father looked very little like himself, paler than Anduin had ever seen him, regrown skin that had never yet seen the light of day almost as white as his shirt and the covers piled over him. It made his hair even blacker, hiding the bits of fading gray that Anduin knew were there, and the whole mass of it had been combed back and tied out of the way with more neatness than Varian ever bothered with himself - the work of one of the healers, Anduin suspected, and that his father had even allowed it spoke volumes for how little mobility the man had yet. 

And yet... he was alive, breathing, awake and alert, those long, thin arms wrapped around his granddaughter as Varia burst into tears, her cries of "Grandda" muffled against one bony shoulder. Anduin, who could vividly remember the shape of half formed limbs and the terribly vulnerable and visible beat of a heart in a translucent mass that was little more than magic and prayer given form, swallowed hard and blinked back the blurriness in his own eyes. "Hello, Father."

Varian's smiles had always been the rarest of things, little known or seen even with his closest family, but the lightening of his eyes, the way the corners crinkled as he looked at Anduin, made the lump in Anduin's throat all the larger. His father was diverted by the child in his arms, however, and it gave Anduin a moment to swallow several times more and rub a shaking hand over his eyes before he pulled one of the low Pandaren stools closer to the bedside and sank down onto it. 

Varian was rubbing circles on Varia's back, her head tucked beneath his chin as he soothed her. Gentleness and a deft hand with children was another thing few would have credited him with - not even Anduin, at times, who could recall long periods of distance in his own childhood - but grandchildren had softened Varian somewhat. His voice was a familiar rumble, gruff but not harsh. "Shhh... I'm here, it's alright. Hush, my girl, it's alright." 

Anduin leaned forward, smoothing back Varia's tumbled golden curls. "She's missed you. They all have."

His father's hand caught his wrist, squeezing briefly, and Anduin had to blink hard. Silence and small gestures had always been their best communication - _I've missed you too_ was threaded through what Anduin didn't say, and the press of his father's hand meant that Varian understood, without the awkward need for words. 

It took some time to soothe the outburst of pent up emotion that came pouring out of Varia with all the lack of restraint a child of five could display where her grown father couldn't. Varian tucked her against his side, keeping up a steady circular motion against her back as she cried herself out, but his gaze had caught on the form at Anduin's hip. Li Hua returned his gaze with the calm, wide open stare of babes, unperturbed by her older sister's cries. 

Varian started to reach out with his free hand, pausing partway. "Is that...?"

Anduin ducked his head beneath the strap of the sling, pressing a brief kiss to Li Hua's ears and combing the unruly pale gold mop of her hair from her face. Her cheeks were damp; she was drooling around the teething ring and he wiped her face with the cuff of his sleeve in a gesture so ingrained he no longer gave it any thought regardless of the quality of the clothes he was wearing. Varia roused as Anduin lifted Li Hua over her, reaching automatically for her sister, but Anduin tucked the babe into his father's arms and caught his eldest daughter's chin, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief to clear her running tear-blotched nose with. 

The surprise had returned to his father's face, though whether it was for the babe in his arms or Anduin's matter of fact managing of multiple cubs Anduin couldn't have said. Varian's gaze drifted back to the babe now cradled against his chest and he touched her ears gently, thumbing the small gold studs set there. "Li Hua," he said, and though his pronunciation was rough it made a warmth swell through Anduin's chest to hear it at all. "Light, she's grown so big! She fit across my palms the last time I saw her."

"They're sitting up, now," Anduin told him, unable to suppress the smile that the sight of his father holding the cub brought to him. "And crawling, when they've a mind to. They'll be up and running, Light help us, by this time next year."

"Father says I'm not allowed to carry her any more," Varia interjected, tears forgotten in her aggrieved outrage at the unfairness. 

"She's going to be as big as you are, soon, sweetling, so no, you can't carry her around like one of your dolls any more," Anduin said, passing a palm over Varia's hair. "But she'll be able to play with you soon and that's better, isn't it?"

"Maybe," Varia allowed grudgingly, her jaw set mulishly into a very Wrynn show of stubborn. 

The sound that interrupted them startled them both, and it took Anduin a very real moment to identify it as _laughter_ \- rough, rasping, half coughed, but laughter all the same, his father's unfettered amusement, even rarer than his smiles. Varian gathered his elder granddaughter in against his side, shoving pillows behind them both, and then slid an unprotesting Li Hua into the valley between them so that Varia could reach the cub. "I'll share," Varian said dryly, but when he glanced at Anduin he snorted another small burst of laughter. "It's like watching you at that age all over again," he said, chuckling, "when you had your mind set on something."

Anduin blinked, caught flat footed and gaping for a moment at the teasing. He shook his head ruefully, raking the loose strands of his hair back. "And here I thought I was raising a golden version of _you,_ " he said wryly, and was rewarded with another burst of his father's rasping wheeze of laughter, a sound he hadn't heard since before his youngest children had been born. 

It broke the tension and eased something deep inside him that he hadn't even known was clenched tight. It was easy, after that, to be drawn onto the edge of the bed instead of the distance of a stool. Easy to talk, of anything and everything, all of the news both important and not that his father listened to voraciously, starved for word of his kingdom and people beyond what could be conveyed in brief letters. And all the while Varian's large hand curled loosely around Anduin's wrist, holding on with an unthinking urgency that made Anduin's breath come short, the ache of grief and loss and hope so mingled in his chest that he couldn't easily draw breath around it.

It was the most animated and awake he had seen his father yet, in the brief times he had managed to visit since the healers had allowed it. All the same, Varian's stamina could be measured in the drops of a teaspoon instead of the limitless oceans he had once had, and Anduin let his voice slow and take on an echo of the cadence that soothed his children to sleep most evenings when he saw his father lean more heavily back against the cushions, strength fading after the initial burst of excitement.

"I knocked my teeth out," Varia announced in the pause after Anduin had finished regaling his father with a summary of the mercenary games earlier that year, which had resulted in an unfortunate but cheerfully taken Alliance loss in the final point tally, and a number of amusing stories he could tell second hand from those who had taken part. Varia's interruption roused Varian from the half doze he had dropped into and his granddaughter obligingly smiled wide, showing off the gap where her left front tooth and the one beside it were missing. 

"How did _that_ happen?" Varian asked, brows rising across his forehead. 

"Sledding!" Varia replied gleefully. Anduin groaned.

"Sledding down the northern wing stairs," he clarified. "On oiled serving trays, her and her brothers."

"Tried to turn, but it was too fast," Varia said, gesturing an expansive _whoosh_ and _swoop_ followed by a sharp clap of her little hands. 

"Hit the landing, crashed, and Varia - who was in the front - fell down the last part of the stairs," Anduin translated ruefully, rubbing at the tension ache in his neck that just the memory of the event brought on. "One of the pages nearly broke _his_ neck coming to get me, and all three of them were crying and all over blood by the time I got there."

"Father says scalp wounds bleed like a bitch," Varia piped up cheerfully. Anduin grimaced, feeling the damnable rush of warmth through his cheeks that he couldn't control, but his father was laughing again, like it was the best thing he had heard in ages, and wanted to see his granddaughter's gap toothed smile and the small hint of scar left along her temple where she had hit her head. 

"Her first battle wounds," Varian said, still grinning with the edge of fierceness that his humor always had. His gaze, however, had darkened a little and he tilted his head slightly at Anduin in a silent question, brows pinched inwards. Anduin, secure in how far the eldest cubs' lessons had progressed and what it hadn't yet covered, raised his hand in a quick series of short motions derived from a mix of sentry and thieves signals. _Throne audience - fled lessons - consort nursery._

Varian nodded shortly, the unspoken question of where everyone had been and why no one was with the cubs at the time answered. "Don't encourage her," Anduin said out loud, gently chiding with no real strength to it, because the chances of his words being heeded were about as good as a snowball's survival when tossed into the Firelands. "No more sledding indoors, no skipping lessons to go down to the stables and hang off the war horses..."

"You'll be starting her on a pony, then?" Varian asked, expression skeptical.

"Rams!" Varia gasped, hugging Li Hua to her chest like a shield. "Father, you promised we could have rams!"

"I said _maybe,_ " Anduin said firmly. " _After_ you learn how to care for a turtle. Which," he added before his daughter could start protesting, "can _swim,_ so that you don't have to wait for me or your papa or your uncle to take you swimming every time you want to go."

Varia set her mouth in a line that would have been fierce if it wasn't still adorable. "He promised us war rams from Ironforge," she told Varian stubbornly. Her grandfather was laughing almost silently, his shoulders shaking with it.

"She's exactly like you," Varian managed to rasp, pointing at Anduin with a sharp grin. Anduin snorted, brushing his father's accusing finger aside. 

"I don't remember being obsessed with war chargers ten times larger than I was," he replied a bit peevishly.

"Only because I was putting you on mine before you could walk," Varian chuckled. "Heavy recurve bow," he added, before Anduin could protest. "Almost as tall as you were, and you insisted you'd be able to draw it by your seventh birthday." The grin broadened and for a moment Anduin's breath caught as he glimpsed something bright and hot in his father's eyes, even more rare than smiles or laughter. "You weren't wrong."

"...I remember that," Anduin admitted, breathless and struggling to keep his voice steady, his gaze locked to his father's. Bright and hot, inscrutable, always subsumed quickly into stone, or anger, or the gruff, sharp edged distance that held everyone at bay. In that moment, though, Anduin _could_ read it; knew the shape of it from his own mirror, the feel of it in the muscles of his own face. 

It was _pride,_ a fierce pride that burned too hot for words alone, the surge of heart swelling pride locked tight inside a parent's heart. It ripped the breath from his lungs and rippled deep into his bones, shaking his very foundation. For a moment he was ten again, or seven, a child desperate for his father's approval, before he had come to his own conclusion and shaky peace with the idea that what was best for him would never warrant anything except disapproval from the one person he wanted most to please. 

Now, though... with adult eyes he could recognize that fierce, wordless look as _pride,_ buried deep and hidden the way his father buried all of his emotions that might provide an exploitable chink in the grim faced armor he wrapped himself in. It flayed Anduin to the core, leaving him breathless, the lump in his throat choking him. 

"I never did hit anything with it," he managed, voice tight. 

"Not then," his father agreed. "Not accurately. But you drew and knocked and held it to a count of three." Varian blinked and the look was gone, as though it had never been, replaced by a dry grin with a flash of sharp teeth, the one Anduin was fairly certain had preceded entirely too many bar fights. "Your father," he told Varia in a conspiratory mock whisper, "is as stubborn as rocks."

It broke the moment, shaking his breath loose even though his bones still felt half liquid. "I wonder where I got it from," Anduin said dryly, which made his father snort again, utterly unrepentant. 

Anduin started to reach out, needing something - contact, the familiar grip of his father's hand no matter how weakened, _something_ \- but the small hiccuped sound that preceded Li Hua's awakening, blinky eyed and small hands flailing, pulled him to his youngest daughter instead, automatically smoothing her ears to let her wake to something familiar and slipping a hand beneath her to check if she needed changing. His father watched the set of motions, head cocked slightly. "Bottle?" he suggested. "I'm sure someone around here can find something."

"They can eat solids," Anduin replied; Varia had offered her hands to her sister as a distraction and Li Hua's small fingers were wrapped around two of Varia's while the cub tried to pull her prize to her mouth to chew on. "Well... of a sort. Provided it can be mashed or boiled soft. She only has two teeth so far, though her brothers have more."

Varian snorted. "She's welcome to some of what they keep bringing me, then," he said sourly and Anduin had to suppress a smile. The bitter tone was one he knew well, from every time injury or illness had left his father confined to bed for longer than a day. He must not have stifled the reflex fast enough, however, because Varian fixed him with a narrow eyed gaze, brows drawn down in what, on his daughter, Anduin would have called a sulk. "Don't know how they expect anyone to gain any strength on water and gruel - the stockades feeds their prisoners better than that."

"I assume Vol'jin is still here?" Anduin asked mildly, though he knew the answer quite well - the health status of the former Warchief was something he had negotiated for bare-bones reports on from the healers. When his father nodded shortly Anduin just shrugged. "Then I'm sure you've seen - or heard - how well _he's_ handling solid foods, and the healers only had to repair _part_ of his stomach."

Varian grimaced, hand going reflexively to his lower chest to rub absently. There were no scars there - there had been nothing left _to_ scar, the entirety of his torso from shoulder to hip regrown wholesale over weeks of painstaking relentless magic. In many ways, Anduin knew, his father was now healthier than he had been in years, old injuries and scarring wiped away - it was only strength he lacked, and the hardening of tissues and organs that were now as fragile and tender as a newborn babe's. 

The lack of strength was a blessing, when it was only Varian's own weakness and his body's betrayal of his stubborn will that kept him in bed. Anduin knew, in detail, which healers were already frustrated with his father's temper and could be soothed with appreciative words and better appreciation in the form of small gifts, and he could gauge from a lifetime of experience how long it would take before even weakness wouldn't be enough to keep his father from pressing his limits. Reaching out, he caught his father's wrist, stilling the hand that was pressing against Varian's sternum as though a phantom pain still lingered. "I've asked the healers to let you eat real foods as soon as it's wise," he admitted. "Right now, you'd only make yourself weaker bringing it all back up again as soon as you swallowed."

Varian grimaced. "They could have told _me_ that," he growled. A thought eased his frown, though, the ghost of a sharp toothed humorless smile touching his mouth. "Hardwire keeps bringing Vol'jin fish, the traitor," he admitted without any real heat. "I'd happily kill the both of them just for the smell of it, but Vol'jin spends hours purging after every time. Stubborn old troll keeps doing it, though."

"Fel poisoning is tenacious," Anduin sighed. "All of our healers are struggling with it. You think you've drained it all, only for it to take root somewhere else in the body. Flesh and muscle wounds aren't so bad, but anything touching the inner organs is the primary cause of our wounded evacuation on the Broken Shore."

Frowning, Varian tugged his hand free, shoving pillows back to let him lean up more against the head of the bed and scooping a fussing Li Hua into his lap. "Go ask them to bring lunch," he said shortly, "and then tell me."

Anduin did as asked and rose to send the first of the younger healers that he could flag down, a half grown orc girl whose sleeveless initiate vest bared arms with more corded muscle than Anduin could muster at his best, to run off to the nearby open kitchens. He let his hands form the signs for ‘orc’ and ‘listen’ when he returned to his father’s bedside; monks were loyal to their Temples, first and foremost, but most still retained ties to their homeland factions. Varian only tipped his head a fraction of an inch and asked about the youngest cubs; when the girl came back with two trays Anduin was telling him about the first time Li Hua had rolled over on her own, something that had startled her almost as much as it had him and had involved a panicked grab before she rolled herself off the side of the bed. 

The orc girl grinned at the cubs and Anduin thanked her, as dismissal and in part because his father’s disgruntled grunt at the tray set over his lap lacked any kind of manners. Varian shot him a dour look that said he knew the passive chastisement for what it was, but managed a grudging thanks before the girl left. 

The food was as bleak as Varian had made it out to be; rice porridge, half mashed and thinned with the lightest of broths into a slurry, accompanied with nothing but water. It was enough to make Anduin sympathetic, especially when compared to the noodle and vegetable thick soup bowls the initiate had brought for Varia and him. He fumbled a little with the polished sticks that Pandarens used as eating utensils before getting the holding positioning right, then sighed and carefully picked out a few noodles to deposit on the edge of the porridge bowl. “If it makes you sick you’ve no one but yourself to blame,” he warned his father. 

Varian grinned wolfishly and picked the noodles out with his fingers - something that Varia promptly copied with her own bowl, abandoning her utensils - but his enthusiasm slowed sharply after the first bite. “Heavy spices,” he huffed, dragging in a deep breath through his open mouth as though that might dispel the heat on his tongue.

“It’s really not,” Anduin countered, taking a much larger mouthful to demonstrate. “You’re used to no spice at all.”

His father grimaced, deliberating, then finally set the noodles aside once more, picking up his spoon. “Too hot for the babe,” he grumbled, dipping up a spoonful of porridge to offer to Li Hua. Anduin let the excuse stand, too relieved that his father had the sense to not push his limits.

“Tell me about the casualties,” Varian ordered, deftly evading Li Hua’s attempts to grab at the spoon, though not all of the porridge was making it into her mouth. Anduin swallowed his own mouthful and started talking, relaying the casualty types and numbers from reports he had received and boiling down the more healer focused technical ones into layman’s terms. 

“It’s a technique the Illidari use to control and expel their demonic taint,” he was explaining a few minutes later when Varian continued to nod and gesture for more. “Runic based, the ink made from crushed leystone. The Illidari use it in their tattoos,” he added, suppressing a grimace. His own memories were hot and cold, full of rounds of being too sick to move and frozen to the bone, and the idea of that burning cold being permanent was almost enough to make a body sympathetic to the self-proclaimed demon hunters. "But we’ve found it’s equally useful for fel poisoning when applied as ink to skin. The ink wears off by the time the poison is expelled.”

Varian made a disparaging sound. "And Illidan's lapdogs offered this up out of the goodness of their hearts?" he scoffed.

Anduin took his time swallowing his next bite, using the excuse of a full mouth to delay answering. "No," he finally admitted. "The Illidari use was witnessed by one of our mercenary miners who was contracted to bring an ailing Illidari charged leystone, and the first version of the purging technique was created by a Lorewalker inscriptionist."

It took his father an admirably short few beats before the older man's eyes narrowed. "And the first use was on the Broken shore?" he asked, his tone making it clear he expected to hear otherwise.

"Here," Anduin clarified calmly. "The first use was here, on Shen-Zin Su."

His father’s mouth pressed into a thin, displeased line, but his hands were still gentle as he continued to offer his youngest granddaughter spoonfuls of porridge between his own reluctantly taken bites. Anduin let him digest that news on his own, turning to try to quietly correct Varia into using utensils again when the girl seemed quite happy to continue eating her soup one noodle at a time with her fingers. 

Varian finally let out a short, heavy breath, reaching for a napkin to wipe bits of rice off of Li Hua’s face as the cub wiggled. “I suppose I owe Stoneclaw, then,” he said grudgingly. “Vol’jin and I both. Good of him to do - he’s not a healer.”

Anduin shook his head, suppressing any trace of irritation at his father’s discomfiture. The apology, gruff and backhanded as it was, was still there, after a fashion. “It wasn’t used on you,” he told his father. “Nor the Warchief. You were both too far gone and the purge isn’t gentle, it was deemed too much of a risk.”

His father shot him a sharp look, expression darkening. “But not for you?” he demanded, scowling. “The reports - they tried to poison you. An experimental, untried spell from the damned Illidari...”

“ _Father_.” Anduin didn’t try to soften the sharpness of his voice, cutting across his father’s in a way he hadn’t dared to do even a scant handful of years before. “You read the report,” he continued once he was sure Varian was listening. “The poison was meant to weaken, not kill, and it was targeted at both King and Consort. Ren tested the technique on himself, first, before they used it on me.”

Varian glared. “The reports sent to me are scrubbed down to the bare bone,” he snarled, “and Hardwire, damn his hide, just tells me everything is _going well_. It’s not fucking ‘going well’, we’re at war with the damned Legion and they’ve tried to kill you-“

“Calm yourself!” The words had no power behind them but they might as well have for how they cut off Varian’s growing volume. Anduin waited a beat, listening to his father’s labored breath and letting Varian himself hear and feel it. “Hardwire is under strict orders from the healers not to stress or excite you,” he told his father flatly. “And unlike me, they _can_ forbid him to see you, and I don’t think either of you want that.”

His father’s glare had lost none of its strength but Anduin met it head on, unflinching. “You were barely conscious,” he said firmly. “The first time I saw you actually awake and _aware_ was towards the end of the incident, and by the time you were actually retaining anything it was all over. We weren’t even sure, up to that point, that you were going to pull through. So _no_ , Father, no one told you all of the details - there was nothing you could do and no point in wasting your strength when you needed all of it for yourself.”

“I’m not a damned invalid-“ Varian growled, but Anduin cut him off again. 

“Yes,” he said sharply, “you _are_. Do NOT raise your voice,” he added, the words hissed, “or I’m going to have to call one of the Mistweavers in to regulate your breathing.” That shut his father’s mouth abruptly and Anduin exhaled, finding that his hands were clenched around his soup bowl, his shoulders up and tensed all through his back like the anticipation of a blow. He shut his eyes for a moment, forcing the tightness to loosen and mentally running through the first basic numbers in Pandaren until he could unclench his hands, but it did nothing for the dull, sour feel in his stomach.

“...Father?” Varia’s voice was small and Anduin flinched, setting his bowl aside to reach for his daughter, smoothing back her hair and pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

“It’s alright,” he told her gently. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’re not angry, we’re just... disagreeing.”

Varian grimaced, shifting to tuck a fussing Li Hua against his chest and freeing one hand to rub against Varia’s back. “A little angry,” he growled, casting Anduin a sharp look, “but your father’s right. It’s nothing my girls need to worry about.”

If he even realized he had included both Human and Pandaren grandchild in that simple phrase there was no sign of it, the words coming easy. It eased an ache in Anduin’s chest, even as all the rest of it knotted his stomach in a mix of anger and fear. He reached out, catching his father’s wrist, and the feel was still far too much bone and nothing like the solidness he had known all his life. “Please,” he said softly. “Father. Don’t press this. Doing yourself injury isn’t going to help anything.”

“Keeping me in the dark isn’t going to keep me calm,” Varian shot back, but a twist of his hand slid their fingers together, palm pressed to palm, and his squeeze still had some strength to it. “I know why the reports are stripped,” he admitted, grimacing, “but do me the damned courtesy of telling me the truth in person. There’s nothing wrong with my _mind._ ”

"Alright," Anduin said, the word slow and heavy in his mouth, a match to the heavy feel in his chest. "You're right," he added, which sent his father's brows climbing up towards his hairline. Anduin grimaced, unconsciously squaring his shoulders. "Light knows I could have used your advice," he admitted, "but I will _not_ condone anything that jeopardizes either a current situation or your recovery. Alright?"

Varian's eyes narrowed, his mouth set in a sour line. “Nothing current,” he agreed, the words reluctant, “unless it’s need-to-know.”

“As determined by your healers and the situation,” Anduin countered smoothly. His father growled and would have pulled his hand back, but Anduin held on, swallowing hard against the lump it made in his throat to realize that he _could_ restrain his father’s physical motion. “Non-negotiable,” he said firmly, and had to swallow again to try to fight down the wetness in his eyes and the unsteadiness in his voice.

“Anduin-” his father growled, but Anduin shook his head.

“I won’t go through that again,” he said quietly, the words tumbling over themselves in his mouth. He couldn’t meet his father’s eyes and finally turned his face away to focus on Varia’s golden curls. “I _can’t_ , and I won’t put myself or the children through it. No relapse, no decline, Father. The healers have final say.”

There was silence for a long moment and then Varian cleared his throat; his voice, when he spoke, was still rough but lacked any bite to it, and the grasp of his hand engulfed Anduin’s once more. “Anduin... son...”

Anduin shook his head slightly, stroking once more over his daughter’s hair where she was leaning against his side, then straightened and wiped brusquely at his eyes. “It was food administered,” he told his father matter of factly. It was easier, by far, to talk about one of several assassination attempts than it was to continue dredging out the emotions they both rarely shared. “Dry goods only. We tracked the contamination back to several wheat shipments from Westfall. I might,” he added, forcing a weak smile, “have set part of the kitchens on fire tracing it. Fel and Light react badly to each other.”

His father snorted, shifting to sink down lower against the pillows while retaining his grasp on Anduin’s hand. His brow was pinched again, the look thoughtful instead of angry, and his free hand kept up a slow, soothing stroke against Li Hua’s back where the cub was drifting off to sleep once more. “The Legion attempted a landing in Westfall, didn’t they? As near as they could get to the Stormwind wards. The contamination...”

“Too targeted to pass as general contamination,” Anduin sighed. His father looked sharply at him and Anduin grimaced. “I was the primary target, Ren was secondary. The children didn’t have any trace, but I’m not sure if that was by design or because they’ve all developed a taste for rice flour over wheat.”

“No cookies unless father or papa or uncle or Master Shaw says it’s alright,” Varia piped up. Anduin ruffled her hair gently, smiling. 

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he confirmed. He glanced back at his father, who had raised one brow in silent acknowledgement. “Additionally, it required a triggering agent, the source of which was found on Merandih.”

Varian grunted, broad mouth pressed in a thin, angry line. “You executed him,” he said, the words a statement and not question. Anduin nodded - that had been in the report that had made its way to his father’s hands, along with mention of the revoking of the Merandih House council seat, and the seizing of their holdings by the Crown. 

“Good,” Varian said shortly, the word bitten off and vicious. “Bad enough when we had those damned cultists under our noses, but to side with the Legion-“

“Desperate people do desperate things,” Anduin sighed. “But that... an example had to be made.” He shrugged slightly, looking away. It was a series of days he didn’t like to think on, the necessity not making it any more palatable. “They promised him power once the Crown was destabilized. It was a cumulative poison meant to incapacitate, with a mind altering aspect that dramatically increased paranoia. Enough misjudged decisions resulting in losses would have swayed the military to their side, and if they could have proven me unfit to rule then the Council - headed by Merandih - would have formed a regency for Varia.” 

There was a low sound coming from his father, an unarticulated rumble deep in his throat that Anduin was at a loss to identify as anything except a _growl_. Varian had his youngest granddaughter tucked close against his shoulder, tendons standing out stiffly in the thinned lines of his hand that was spread in a shield against her back, and his expression was the dark foreboding thunder that the Stormwind Council of Noble Houses had lived in fear of. 

Anduin watched his father breath in silently, nostrils flared, before he spoke, his voice a sharp bark. "You've taken measures?"

There was a time - especially as he had grown older, and often in the last several years - when Anduin knew he would have taken it as a rebuke. Would have felt the sting of his father's perceived disappointment, the bite of Varian Wrynn's infamous temper and impatience with incompetence prickling against his own skin. Would have had his own hackles up, defensive and clinging to the justification of his decisions in the face of what felt like distrust and judgement. 

Now... he watched and felt the way his father's hands tightened, on his own wrist and on his daughter. The way Varian's eyes had sharpened, looking for a fight, the way his father kept breathing, deliberate breaths that were, yes, reigning in his temper, but it was the temper of a wolf snarling and snapping over den and cubs. The sound and feel were unavoidable, splashing out all around him, but the focus of his ire was not those closest to him, no matter how it felt. 

Protection, not condemnation, Anduin realized, exhaling his own breath as he let himself _feel_ it. His father's sharpness was part and parcel of who the man was, the shields and armor that Varian wore beneath his skin. His curtness was the brevity of the battlefield, a commander demanding a report when there was little time for words, not that of a disappointed teacher driving a lesson home. 

Between one breath and the next the question that at first sounded like disparaging condemnation slid into a demand for intel, his father's need to know that the perimeter was secured as he reached to take up the watch. It steadied Anduin, filling an ache deep inside of him, even as he twisted his hand to squeeze against his father's fingers in silent reassurance - _no need, at ease, all is well_. "The Council has been reminded that the final word is, and always has been, the Crown's, and I have appointed a regency of my choice should it ever be required. Ren," he added just a tiny bit sharply when his father's eyes narrowed further, "is not included in that."

Varian's mouth twisted, but even his scowl could be viewed in a new light projected by the gentle way he cradled Li Hua. "They'd only contest it to hell and back thrice over if you wrote him in as regent," he growled. 

"Which we all know," Anduin agreed mildly. "And Ren has just as much desire to have to spearhead Stormwind's politics as he has to shave himself to the skin and go swimming in Northrend."

The sheer ridiculousness of the statement caught his father flat footed and after a stunned moment Varian snorted, the line of his shoulders relaxing just a bit. "Who-?"

"General Anderson," Anduin answered promptly. “Seconded officially by Commander Broderick. Unofficially Shaw is second, but he asked not to have his name linked to the actual written documents. And,” he added jokingly, a tremulous laugh bubbling up through his chest, “before you ask, no, Renzik is nowhere in the chain - not only would the Council crucify him faster than they would Ren, he can, at best, be trusted as a babysitter for _maybe_ half an hour. At _best_.” 

One of Varia’s thin elbows caught against Anduin’s ribs as she nudged him, a frown and outthrust lower lip declaring what she thought of the adults talking over her head. “Master Renzik is _fun_ ,” she said, defensive. 

“I’m sure he is,” Varian agreed dryly, the ghost of a smile reluctantly tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Of course he is,” Anduin assured his daughter. He caught his father’s eye and smiled ruefully. “Renzik lets you all get away with murder and then teaches you how not to get caught.”

“As long as he draws the line at actual murder,” Varian grumbled softly. He shifted again, letting go of Anduin with a quick wince as he settled himself against the pillows. “Anderson is a good choice,” he sighed. “Better than Rogers, which is probably the only other option. They won’t argue against him, and with that confirmed they wouldn’t have enough ground to protest anyone he appointed.”

Anduin only nodded, his attention primarily on the thin lines at the corners of his father’s eyes and mouth and the lessened color in his cheeks. “Stomach?” he asked quietly.

Varian snarled, shifting again as he tried to find a comfortable position. “It was only one bite,” he growled reluctantly.

“And I warned you,” Anduin said agreeably. He held out his hands and his father, with another snarl, let him scoop up Li Hua’s sleeping weight. “Do you want me to get one of the Mistweavers?” Anduin asked, more for the sake of doing so than out of any real expectation his father would allow it.

Varian pressed his lips tight and shook his head, crossing his arms solidly over his stomach as though he might, by pressure alone, contain whatever discomfort he was feeling. “Can you-?”

“Not unless you want to be purging yourself inside out,” Anduin told him, wincing. “The Light and fel react very badly to each other. 

His father growled, the sound locked behind his clenched teeth failing to produce any new words Varia might ask about. His complexion was rapidly shifting from pale to white and was now edging into rough spots of flushed color, his breathing deliberately deeper. “That Illidari thing,” he ground out, “you’re sure it wouldn’t-?”

“Father,” Anduin said with dry regret, “I spent two weeks so dizzy I couldn’t stand and throwing up everything including water, and that was from a _contaminant_. Can you imagine what it would do to you?”

“...a lot worse than a mouthful of noodles,” Varian admitted sourly, blowing his breath out through his mouth and drawing it in the same way. Anduin could see the tendons and muscles of his father’s wrists stand out where the man had his fingers dug into his sides. “Worth it,” he said after another few breaths, mouth quirking up in a short smile that was gone just as quickly. “Might give that damned fish a pass, though,” he admitted.

“Just so you can say you have more sense than Vol’jin?” Anduin asked with grudging humor. He couldn’t claim he had expected anything different and in the end he just shook his head and offered Li Hua to her sister, who perked up with a delighted grin. The youngest cubs were too large for Varia to properly carry any more, but Li Hua curled contentedly into the cradle of her older sister’s crossed knees while Varia stroked the rounded cups of her furry ears. “I’m going to go get one of the healers,” he told her. “If your grandfather is sick, try to keep out of the way.”

“Don’t you dare,” Varian growled, grabbing for him before Anduin could get to his feet. “It’s fine. It’ll pass.”

“It will,” Anduin agreed. His father’s color was still more paste white than pale, his grip a fraction of itself, but he reluctantly let the man hold on, not trying to break free. “All of this will, father. You’re getting better. You just have to give it time.”

Varian snarled wordlessly, as discontent with his state as he had ever been with every injury Anduin could recall. For all the sick discomfort that he couldn’t escape, however, his eyes were sharp. “Who knows?” he asked abruptly. “About me. They know?”

Anduin stilled, the shape of the layers unspoken beneath his father’s question already unfurling in his mind’s eye. “Shaw does,” he answered, “and I have every faith that even if the Legion bombs Stormwind itself into a fel poisoned crater Shaw and the rest of SI:7 will somehow crawl out of the wreckage.” He hesitated, turning to clasp his father’s hand palm to palm. If his father were a different man he knew he might ask, might offer - a second chance, a new life, something so much better suited to the man than the life he had been born into. 

_Politics_ , Hardwire liked to drawl when Anduin needed just another handful of minutes before joining his mates, and another after that, just one more, he would be finished soon but ‘soon’ was always a relative thing. _It’s in your blood, you can’t help yourself._

And he was his father’s son, in the end, and he knew what his own answer would have been no matter what he might have wished, and he wouldn’t do his father’s pride the insult of trying to encourage an answer he knew the other man would never give. No matter how much he might, himself, dream of the impossible, sometimes so vibrant and wanted that he could feel the ache threaded all through him for a simpler life, a quieter one, time spent with family as his only focus, scholarly learning for its own sake, a craft or a trade, a life without the weight of the crown. No matter that he could see so clearly how his father would thrive with nothing more complicated than his sword and the skill of his own hands, a mercenary, a guard, tactician sell-sword fighting for the sheer thrill of pitching himself against the odds and with only himself to worry about. In the end, though, it was only dreams - they might _want_ to be something other than they were, but what they _were_ was in their bones and blood and every instinct, dragging them back with the inescapable undertow of responsibility that they couldn't escape. 

“Shaw has orders,” he told his father quietly, “to share the information if the situation calls for it. If anything were to happen to me, he is to wait for final confirmation of what has happened - or Ren’s order, or a month, whichever comes first - to inform Anderson or Broderick, whichever is standing as regent, and to come get you.”

Varian nodded sharply, though his mouth twisted sourly. “Ren’s order?” he queried gruffly. 

“He’s Varia’s father,” Anduin said firmly. “If I’m incapacitated or missing then Anderson will ensure the war and Stormwind continue to function, but Ren is the best judge of Varia’s state. If he says she needs her grandfather sooner rather than later, then that is what Shaw will do.”

Varia, who was listening intently to every word while astutely never looking up from where she was twisting the pale gold baby fluff of Li Hua’s hair into tiny ringlets. His father glanced at the girls, then nodded, squeezing Anduin’s hand once. “Alright,” he said grudgingly. “I won’t interfere. Can’t,” he admitted, grimacing, “not now. But if you need me...”

“I know,” Anduin assured him. “Light willing, you won’t have to, but I know, father.” He pulled his hand free, pressing the larger man down against the pillows gently. “Rest, dammit. I’ll be back with one of the Mistweavers.”


	3. Chapter 3

Master Peony was soft everywhere Master Stormstrike was hard, except for her eyes, which counted two to the priest’s one and were just as sharp and murderous when she fixed them on the target of her ire. “You did _what?_ ”

Anduin suppressed a grimace. “One noodle,” he clarified. “Half of a bite, and he had the sense to stop after. I was making a point,” he admitted, sighing.

Peony huffed softly. The Mistweaver master was short for a Pandaren, which still left her ear tips level with the top of Anduin’s head. She was also round, in a way most monks of the temple weren’t, the muscle Anduin had no doubt she possessed smoothed away beneath a thick layer of plump padding and very generous curves. Her fists were planted on her hips, emphasizing the largest of those curves, and her ears had flicked back in irritation. “A point?” she said scathingly. “Of what? Making him purge when he’s barely eating as it is...” She snapped her mouth shut abruptly, one ear twitching as she glared at Anduin. 

_”Oh.”_ There was a wealth of exasperation in the one syllable and Anduin relaxed as the Mistweaver relented, only to be caught with his hands half raised in defense when she rounded on him again. “You might have told us he was one of _those_ types,” she growled, jabbing a finger at him, and if she had been possessed of a longer tail instead of the short round tuft most dark furred Pandaren had, Anduin was certain it would have been lashing like an angry cat’s. “I’d have given the fool a bite of steak weeks ago if it would make him stop his complaining.”

“He takes it better from family,” Anduin demurred. Peony snorted and turned on her heel, marching towards the hospice buildings. She wore her dark brown hair swept up in a loose twist; it left her back bare, where the top few fastenings of her simple green dress had come undone, pale shoulder fur peeking through the gaps.The full skirts flared generously past her waist, not hindering her stride in the slightest, but Anduin watched more than a handful of heads turn to follow her progression across the Temple yards; the smooth motion of her hips was wide, aggressive, and rolled like the pitch of a ship at sea. 

His father hadn’t moved; Varia had, but only to wiggle her way closer to the head of the bed, tucked against her grandfather’s shoulder with her baby sister still cradled in her lap while she relayed with great enthusiasm the highlights of her lessons - not the normal ones of her letters and numbers but the ones SI:7 had been imparting, games for herself and her brothers that sounded on the surface like hide and seek and were actually rudimentary stealth training. 

Varian glanced up as they entered; there was a light sheen of sweat on his brow and a sick color to his cheeks, but the basin at the side of the bed remained unused. Peony hooked one of the stools with her ankle and dragged it to the bedside, seating herself with a huff, her hands already in motion as she reached across her patient in the unique push and pull circle of a Mistweaver. Varia paused politely but Varian, after a beat, prompted her to continue - the healer hadn’t spoken and didn’t seem to require any input from them. 

Anduin sat on the edge of the bed beside his daughters, smoothing a hand over Varia’s hair and down her back with a soft smile as he listened. “They’re getting quite good,” he told his father when she paused for breath. “No one spotted them getting in and out of the Pandaren Councillor’s rooms with half his things.”

“As long as they gave them back,” Varian said roughly. His breath was labored, hitching slightly when Peony would hook her claws just so in the broad sweep of her motions, but his gaze was sharper. “Does Shaw realize he’s training them to give him the slip sooner than you did?”

“Of course,” Anduin confirmed with a grin. “That’s why he’s training them to work as a team; at least they’ll watch each other’s backs.”

“Always stick together,” Varia confirmed, nodding. Anduin chuckled and kissed her forehead, then lifted Li Hua up when the cub woke with a whine. Varia pouted, but let him take her, launching into another story as Anduin shifted his younger daughter to his shoulder and rose to carry her out before the babe could wake up properly and start crying. 

He brought her back a double handful of minutes later, freshly changed and happily sucking on her teething ring once more. Li Hua was one of the easier ones to carry, unlike her brothers who tended to wiggle; she nestled against Anduin’s chest, her head tucked against his shoulder and drooling on his collar as he kissed and nuzzled her ears. 

“...hope you’ve learned something,” Master Peony was saying sharply when he entered the room. The Pandaren was on her feet, leaning over the bed as she supported his father with one hand and vigorously rearranged his pillows with the other, shaking and punching them into place until she was satisfied and let Varian lean back once more. “Though if you need a refresher, I’ll bring you a full meal myself and stand back while you purge yourself inside out.”

Varian grunted. There was color in his cheeks again, as little as it was, and his breath was steady and no longer sucked in and out on nauseated pants. His expression was sour, but he kept his words to himself, accepting the rebuke with what passed as remarkably good grace for him. Anduin watched and had to suppress a grin; the Mistweaver’s vehemence in her gestures set everything on her in motion and it was easy to track where Varian’s half lidded gaze fell, particularly when he was forced to angle his head to the side to avoid colliding with her when Peony leaned over him to roughly straighten and tuck the blankets.

His father even grumbled a word of thanks when she was done, which made Anduin bite his tongue to keep from laughing. He had his expression schooled into politely agreeable attention when she rounded on him, though the presence of his youngest daughter on his shoulder immediately softened her volume somewhat. “A quarter hour more,” she warned him, one finger raised in sharp rebuke, “then leave him be to rest.”

“Of course,” Anduin said, which mollified her. “Thank you,” he added sincerely, and then, on impulse before she could turn away, “...Congratulations.”

Peony’s ears flicked back in surprise, then upwards with the sudden flash of her smile. She patted Anduin’s shoulder briefly. “Quarter hour,” she reminded him, her tone warmer, and then left. 

His father was frowning at him when he turned back to the bed. Anduin let his grin break free. “Should I tell them you’d prefer female healers?” he asked, all innocence. His father’s startled bark of a laugh was a warm sound to hear, and the there-and-gone flash of his sharp toothed grin was more reassuring than color or breath were alone.

“Despite popular rumor, I’m not dead,” Varian drawled with a snort. “What were you congratulating her on?”

“She’s pregnant,” Anduin said blandly as he sat down on the edge of the bed again, his smile turning up at the corners when his father coughed abruptly in surprise. “Not showing yet, probably first or second month, but you can see it in how she walks.”

“And you were watching her walk because...?” Varian asked, mock sharply. Anduin just grinned and shook his head, accepting the tease. 

“Also not dead,” he replied without batting an eye, solely for the pleasure of watching his father do a double take, eyebrows flying up towards his hairline in surprise. Anduin let him gape for a moment, then relented, his small grin turning it into the jest it was. 

“Mostly I was trying to figure out where I had seen the way she walks before,” he admitted truthfully. He sketched an arc in the air with one hand, the ends doubling back in a smooth loop to mimic the movement of the Mistwalker’s hips. “Ren didn’t have that kind of roll until halfway into the third month, but females have a broader hip base to start with, I suppose.”

Varian grimaced, mouth twisting. “Tall, curvy red-head,” he growled, the grumble over a year old now and the bite already well wrung out of it.

Anduin just smiled. “You can’t say that I lied,” he pointed out, amused. “Any assumptions of race or gender were not my doing.”

His father kept the gutter slang guard barracks hand sign on the far side of his body from Varia’s curious eyes and Anduin had to laugh. “Here,” Varian said abruptly, reaching out, and Anduin handed Li Hua over with a bit of surprise that his father would ask. 

Varian cradled the little girl against his chest, smoothing her hair and tracing the rounded curve of one of her ears where small Stormwind lion piercings were starting to be lost as her thicker fur grew in. “Have them done in sapphire,” he suggested. Anduin swallowed dryly but the pang in his chest was a welcome ache, his father’s gruff warmth to the grandchild he had all but denied at her birth an unspoken righting of something that had been grating and wrong between them. 

Varian pressed a gentle kiss to the cub’s forehead, then drew Varia in to do the same, hugging her tight with one arm when she flung hers around him. “Be good for your father,” he told her, and then, slanting an amused glance over her head to Anduin, “and keep at him about that war charger. You’re going to be queen some day, you’ll need to be able to handle one.”

“Father,” Anduin groaned. “Stop encouraging her. There aren’t going to be any war horses until she can reach the stirrups.”

Varian smirked, kissing the top of each girl’s head once more, then let Anduin take Li Hua back once more. “Did you ever tell him about what you told me?” he asked, and the abrupt change back of subject would have thrown Anduin but his father’s expression was still a humorously sly smirk, baited and waiting. 

“Yes,” he sighed in mock exasperation, “and Ren thinks it’s hysterical, so don’t bother trying to dig at him with it.” He shifted his daughter to one arm, reaching his free hand out; his father met him halfway, the clasp of his fingers around Anduin’s warm and solid. “He’ll bring the boys to visit,” he added seriously, watching his father’s face, “if that’s alright.”

Varian grimaced slightly, a flicker of genuine dismay crossing his face. “The twins?”

“One of them,” Anduin assured him, and he could almost have laughed at his father’s visible relief. “The healers would rightfully ban all of us if we brought them together,” he admitted. “One of the twins, and two of Li Hua’s brothers.”

His father nodded, which was as close as Varian would come to admitting that he wasn’t in any shape to deal with twin boys climbing all over him. "And you'll bring the others?" he asked. There was something hungry in the way he looked at his granddaughters, and in the tightening of his hand against Anduin's, a reluctance to part that Anduin could feel the tight pang of in his own chest. 

"If I can get away," Anduin replied truthfully, grimacing. "Or Hardwire can bring them." He let himself smile, and if there was more than fondness to it then the expression was still slight enough to give nothing away. "He's actually very good with the children."

"Uncle's fun too," Varia proclaimed. She was leaning against Anduin's side, her hands fisted in the pocket of his coat, a mannerism he had seen more often in the last months that spoke silently of her self restraint to keep from doing something she wanted to - like climbing back onto the bed. "He took us fishing! I got two. Ling did too. Den had three."

Varian gave her one of his smiles reserved for family, letting go of Anduin's hand to reach out and brush her cheek with his fingertips. "Uncle, is it? And fishing? Good for you. I'll have to ask him about it." 

"And tell him not to bring any fish for you?" Anduin teased gently. 

His father grimaced, subsiding back into the bed cushions. "No fish," he agreed, sighing. "Not yet." He snorted, eyeing Anduin from half closed eyes. "You want to knock him over, you can tell him I'm being _reasonable_ and listening to the Light blessed healers."

Anduin chuckled softly. Varia gave up her attempt at restraint and scrambled back up onto the bed for another hug, all but engulfed in her grandfather's arms. Anduin swallowed, wishing for a brief moment that he could do the same, but settled for clasping his father's shoulder in firm grip. "Get some rest," he advised. "I'll send you a copy of the latest reports myself - at least you'll have something to read while you're recovering."

"I'll be looking for it," Varian replied. He let go of Varia reluctantly, holding her steady as she slid down from the edge of the bed. "Send me their lesson reports as well, would you?"

"I will," Anduin promised. The warmth in his chest was threaded all through him, so much brighter and better than just relief. *This* was his father, the man whose hands he had pressed his infant daughter into and known without question that he and she were both safe, not the angry, disapproving stranger who had held them all at arm's length in the months before the youngest cubs' birth. "Rest, father."

"Not as though I have much choice," Varian growled, but he settled back against the pillows without a fight. When Anduin glanced back after ushering Varia out of the door his father's eyes were already closed, but the flush of color to his skin and the even rise and fall of his chest beneath the blankets was such a welcome sight that Anduin had to pause for a long moment, just fixing the vision in his memory. 

He let his breath out, shifting Li Hua more securely against his shoulder, and ruffled Varia's hair gently. Her small hand slid into his. "Grandda's going to get better?" she asked quietly. "Like... like coughing? And then it's better?"

Anduin smiled, gathering her in close against his side as he turned their steps out of the healing buildings and back to the Temple proper. "Yes, sweetheart. Like coughing, and you rest and it gets better. Your grandda's going to be fine. Would you like to play with some of the cubs here while I talk to Grandmaster Stormstout?" 

Varia perked up - he was certain that if she had possessed rounded Pandaren ears they would have been upright and quivering - and Anduin laughed and gave her a little push towards one of the small training yards where the youngest trainees were involved in 'sparring' that looked more like rough and tumble mock fights under the watchful eye of a junior monk and a pair of Lorewalkers. He'd picked out one of her sturdier travel dresses that morning for a reason, and he could count on her being safely occupied while he went over the most recent intel from the Broken Shore with Chen Stormstout. Settling his younger daughter back into her sling where Li Hua could nestle against his chest and leave his hands free, Anduin took the broad steps leading up to the Temple two at a time with a lightness that he hadn't hoped for.


End file.
